That's not long division, Timmy! China school experimented on pupils with mind-reading tech As if China weren't scary enough already (at least according to US prez Donald Trump), schoolkids in the country have been fitted with head-mounted gizmos to track their attention spans. Citing state-run newspaper Beijing News, The Guardian reports that a trial on primary school-age pupils had to be scrapped after parents …
And may also dispute the underlying premise that 1984 wasn't about how things should be. To us in the West, it is a cautionary tale as to what can happen if the state has unfettered control but to the current regime in China, it may be regarded as a useful blueprint as to how to deal with dissidents. Perspective is everything!
Um. You're responding to this snark: "Jeez, 1984 wasn't a manual, guys!"
and saying they don't take it as snark, but literally.
Like this: "Oh, it wasn't a manual for guys? We'll use it on gals then!"
Well done.
A communist dictatorship is an oxymoron, I'm afraid. You really need to read Marx before sounding off, or you come over like someone who doesn't understand that the valid criticism of communism is that, like Christianity, it posits a future world in which there is no government because everybody is good and kind.
You can have a socialist dictatorship but not a communist one.
In any case 1984 is about a right wing takeover under the guise of socialism (as Hitler did) in which the BBC (Ministry of Truth) is the vector of propaganda,and continues the theme of Animal Farm, that all authoritarian governments end up pretty much alike.
China claims to the run by the Communist Party but it seems to have reverted to being an authoritarian state which has enlisted a subset of the community (Party members) to be the agents of control. In that it resembles the society of 1984 (with the big difference that there is a lot of private enterprise and living standards are rising) but it isn't communist.
1984 was based on Orwell's experiences working in the Ministry of Information (propaganda essentially) during WW2, referred to in official documents as Mininform hence the similar titles for the ministries in 1984, also the appearance of ministry of information building forms the basis for the ministry of love.
"At the outbreak of the Second World War, Orwell's wife Eileen started working in the Censorship Department of the Ministry of Information in central London.... Orwell also submitted his name to the Central Register for war work, but nothing transpired.
...
In August 1941, Orwell ... was taken on full-time by the BBC's Eastern Service. ... This was Orwell's first experience of the rigid conformity of life in an office..."
--- "George Orwell", Wikipedia
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell]
Troublesome questions from pupils more intelligent than your below-minimum wage teaching interns who couldn't get a job flipping burgers? Easy! Just provide "evidence" of ADHD and have them evaluated by a friendly druggist, who will dutifully put the American on a lifetime of dependency, and if they try to wean themselves off it, risk being inserted into the -to-prison part of the pipeline?
Give me the headbands!
"I'm sorry to inform you that little Timmy's mind wandered during a lesson about fruit when we were discussing bananas and he's now on a register for life."
Sounds like what the kindergarten teacher said about your ob'nt s'rv't "I'm sorry, Mrs. Bunch, your child is retarded. He drools on the toys."
At least, that's been my excuse for six decades. Released from pressure to achieve, I've been free to over-achieve or under-achieve. But why bother? It's too much effort to remember what it is you're supposed not to know. That's a joke, son.
Mother, seeing that there was no point discussing the matter with Mrs. Argue (deliciously named), made a short statement which is not recorded in History, and swept out of the meeting.
And will be dead before the law enforcement/social engineering/human performance improvement/think of the children pressure to put actual, non-conspiracy-nutjob microchips in everyone's brain finally forces the necessary dystopian legislation through our capitals....
I am also well planted into middle age, but I am confident that real mind reading, based on ECG wiggles, is going to happen about the same time as Mr. Fusion (operating on table scraps), is available on the market.
Like, never.
What we do have now and in the future, is what we've had in the past: some @$$hole getting everybody to march in lock step, and commit atrocities with gleeful abandon.
@Marketing Hack - I'm beginning to think that it is later than you think, and you'll have a chip long before you die.
@Brian Miller - Why do you need mind reading that works if people believe it does? In 1984 there was the conversation along the lines:
Winston: "You didn't control my mind"
"No, YOU didn't control your mind, that's why you're here."
Just arrest a few people at random, and tell people about the thought-crime you detected.
Winston was not arrested arbitrarily. That would amount to despotism. He really did not feel love for the ‘big brother’. He commited what we nowadays would call a ‘hate crime’.
That being said I am also glad that I will not experience this technology during my lifetime.
IIRC, there was a Microsoft patent several years ago to track user eye/hand movements and detect unproductive workers. My Google-Fu is weak today, however, and I can't find it. I reckon it had a write-up here, though.
I reckon MS should sue the Chinese school for patent infringement (unless it was licensed tech!
article. Really.
The technology is apparently not even close to "mind-reading", so why do you keep implying that this tech might ever be used for any level of "mind-control" beyond that excerted by the current education system, mass media and social media filter bubbles?
And why do you insinuate that the Chinese might at all be out to "rear the _next_ generation of anti-American stormtroopers"? Do you see any anti-American stormtroopers in China right now, do you really think anyone there is obessing over the US?
Given the current state of affairs it's much more likely anyway that in the not too distant future students (not just in China) whith any interest in "America" may have to look it up in the history books.
It's dubious. It seems to be based upon a 2018 "market research report" by an Indian/American company called Grandview Research.
This looks like a peer researched science paper, but it obviously isn't and even it doesn't conclude what is claimed:
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/brain-computer-interfaces-market
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
